Ars Poetica
by Echante
Summary: It's just Addison, and poetry and angst and to quote Shonda, "We learn why she is the way she is..." Just read, or not.


**Ars Poetica (The Art of Poetry)**

_Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?-Langston Hughes_

You see the melancholy in the world. You've lived with a family who long withheld you in the depression of hate and even at five years old you understood the language perfectly. Resentment echoed through the hollow halls of your childhood home. It didn't take too much for the pressure to overflow and to send dark pulsations coursing through, washing over photographs and passing by the gold stained rails of the grand stairway.

You found salvation on a Sunday, when you worshiped outside because there wasn't a church that you wanted to attend. It stood below the vague spotlight of sun streaming in through the dark woods, and warmed the earth around it. It was a simple shack, unconcerned with the greater questions of metaphysics and dripping in its ignorance. Shingles fell along its roof, glass cracked softly along the edges of its window but you embraced it.

At five years old you learned to survive. You learned that simplicity could be a fortress, and that attention could be reckless. So in the solitude of the woods, you built your shelter—you lathered it in beauty and peace and happiness. You drew a protective circle around its outer edges and then settled inside of it, and dreamed of princes and castles where you could grow old.

On the day that your puppy died, your mother tossed it inside the garbage dump and shut the lid, while you looked on, begging her for mercy. She turned a cold shoulder and told you that there would be no dead animals buried in her backyard. You fled the scene, returning to your haven for shelter. You sat in a corner and buried your face into your arms and sobbed until you felt a hand on your shoulder.

Archer looked at you with sympathetic eyes and offered a hand to you, pulling you up, and then helped you brush the dirt off of your jeans and sighed. "Addy," he shakes his head, and puffs up brilliantly in all of his ten years of age, "You can't let them see you cry." He tells you, wiping the streaks off of your cheeks and then shaking you a bit, "Now calm down, Bizzy wants you home in time for dinner."

When you choke back a quiet sob he wraps an arm around your shoulder, "They're not worth it," he whispers into your ear, "don't cry for them… they're not worth it; don't cry."

With one last heave of your chest you stopped, and nodded at him, "Sorry." You said and took his proffered hand. After that, you learned how to cry without tears and how to hold it in, because the world doesn't care.

_Lo! Death has reared himself a throne, in a strange city lying alone…-Edgar Allen Poe_

You eventually learned that by adopting a strategy of isolationism, you were inherently making yourself miserable. So in college, with a careful heart, you exchanged the barrier of silence for the façade of laughter. You collected friends but held them at an arm's length. He changed that.

You were convinced that he was different. You were convinced that he would love you, that he would pay attention to you. He whispered beautiful promises into your ear and laughed at childish things in a way that set you on fire. You saw comfort and shelter in him. You saw security and future in him. You recognized him as someone you'd dreamed about, who you prayed about. You thought he was one of the good ones. You were wrong. They are all the same.

On the night before the wedding you fuck his best friend. It was the replacement for tears and a future that you felt receding before you, bit by bit, day by day. What fucked you up even more was that he didn't notice. What killed you was that he didn't care.

He called himself Dr. Shepherd, not Derek; although you always called him 'Der.' He clung to his pager but not his phone. He watched surgical tapes, not shows and he ate knowledge not food. He was a decent man and that made you feel safe. But you fucking hated him. You loathed him.

You hated how his hair was always in the right place. You once hid the hair-gel to see how he'd react but it turns out, he had another hidden away for just that occasion. He didn't even bat an eye. So you did simple things to ruin the perfection of your life. You tipped over wine glasses to watch the red bleed through the white. Turns out he can get stains out too and in a few precious minutes, the house goes back to perfection.

Mark has witnessed the few moments you fall apart just to breathe deeply and pull yourself together again. You spent your life searching for a place to feel comfortable. You never sought ecstasy. You were looking for a way to feel like you could function but you lived in a house where appearances were deceiving and you were looking for the truth. He was the first time you found it. If anything, he was honest.

So you invited him over, slipped on some black lingerie and slipped your tongue through his and led him astray.

Derek didn't scream when he found out. He just walked away. And suddenly, you were so alone.

"Don't cry Addy, he's not worth it, don't cry." Mark whispers into your hair.

So you don't.

_I lost a World—the other day! Has Anybody found it?-Emily Dickenson_

You let him in, because you were beginning to feel weak again, and he had come the closest to understanding. You both destroyed things for the sake of destroying them; you smashed into others and the world because it made you remember that you were living. You were both tired of smiling in a bullshit world, of being beautiful because beauty was elusive. You hated anybody's jealousy.

You gave a rather generous speech. You told him you were willing. You asked him to let you in and then you winced, waiting because generally opening up doesn't turn out well for you.

"I'm sorry red," is his only reply and you smile the imagined smile and shake your head. You laugh until you cry again and then the tears turn into sobs.

The shack isn't there anymore, taken by rot and returned to the dust. But through racking cries you summon it back and your soul travels back into time. "Don't cry, Addy, they're not worth it." So you don't. You dry your tears and turn away, willing yourself to face life again. And it'll all get better in time.

_So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. –F. Scott Fitzgerald_

_XXXXXX_

_A/N: So I'm a bit of a lit nerd... so sue me.  
_


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